The Lincoln kinsman

ke J—Lt€calu /No

IU&WMM

Number 13

Fort Wayne, Indiana

December, 1939

THE LINCOLNS OF ENGLAND

ORIGIN AND MIGRATIONS OF THE FAMILY

Little was known about the Lincoln
family of England until 1909, the
centennial year of Abraham Lincoln's
birth, when a controversy arose with
respect to whether Lincoln's ancestry
was of English or German origin.

Largely through the efforts of Mar-
ion Dexter Learned of the University
of Pennsylvania, the German origin
myth was exploded and some actual
work was begun to establish the Eng-
lish line of the Lincolns. To this task
J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchinson
gave their scholarly attention. Years
later Dr. W. E. Barton supplemented
the Lea and Hutchinson discoveries
with some further documents, but it
is to these pioneer authors, Lea and
Hutchinson, that we are under obliga-
tion for the English history of the
Lincolns.

The American Cycle
There passed away in London, Eng-
land, on March 5, 1890, a lad seven-
teen years old named Abraham Lin-
coln. His death completed a strange

genealogical cycle which started in
England in 1637 when another youth
of seventeen, Samuel Lincoln, mi-
gated from England to America.
Samuel Lincoln became the first Am-
erican progenitor of President Lin-
coln, and the youth Abraham Lincoln
was the only grandson of his illus-
trious forebear.

Samuel Lincoln established his
home in Massachusetts, and his son
Mordecai also remained in the Bay
State throughout life. Members of the
third generation, including Mordecai,
Jr., began a typical American migra-
tion as follows: Mordecai, born in
Massachusetts, married in New Jersey,
died in Pennsylvania; John, son of
Mordecai, Jr., born in New Jersey,
married in Pennsylvania, died in Vir-
ginia; Abraham, son of John and the
grandfather of the President, born in
Pennsylvania, married in Virginia,
died in Kentucky; Thomas, his son
and the father of President Abraham,
born in Virginia, married in Ken-

The Lincoln Kinsman

tucky, died in Illinois; Abraham, the
President, born in Kentucky, married
in Illinois, died in Washington, D. C.

Of the five generations which in-
cluded the President, no one of the
three most important events, birth,
marriage, and death, occurred in the
same state. In two more generations
the cycle closed. Robert Lincoln, only
son of the President to reach maturity,
died back in New England not far
from where the first Lincolns landed.
Robert's only son, Abraham, died in
England, the country where the Lin-
colns originated.

In nine generations the Lincolns
had crossed the Atlantic, settled in
New England, established homes in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Washing-
ton, D. C., and back in New England,
It was a strange coincidence indeed
that the last male member of the fam-
ily in the ninth generation should have
died in England at the same age as
the Samuel Lincoln who had left there
nearly three centuries before.

Lincoln

One year after Abraham Lincoln
was born, there was published in Eng-
land a book entitled The History of
Lincoln. Charles A. Dana's copy of
the book is now in the Foundation Li-
brary, and it contains an interesting
story of the English town which un-
doubtedly gave origin to the family
name Lincoln.

The author, who writes anonymous-
ly of Lincoln, admits that the early
history of the town is wrapped in ob-
scurity and that it was not until the
Roman invasion that detailed evidence
about the community could be ob-
tained. The site of the town was chosen
for its defensive location. On the east,

south, and west there was a large body
of water, and on the north "a bold
prominent brow." The primitive town
was built by the Britons on this
natural fortification some time pre-
vious to the Christian era. The reduc-
tion of Briton to a Roman colony dur-
ing the life time of Christ, made these
Druid free men, residing there, Ro-
man bondsmen.

The town was first called by the
British name Caer-holme (a town on
a hill ) , although it was later changed
by them to Lincoit. Ptolemy and An-
tonious called it Lindum and Bede
referred to it as Lindissi, Lindecol-
linum and Lindecollina. The Saxons
named it Lyndo-collyne. Now the
capital of Lincolnshire is called Lin-
coln.

The outstanding point of interest in
modern Lincoln is its magnificent ca-
thedral said by many authorities to be
the finest in England. The foundation
of the edifice was laid in 1088. For
three hundred years it passed through
a period of evolution until it reached
its "acme" in the year 1400.

In the appendix to the book already
mentioned, there is a "List of mem-
bers returned to Parliament for the
city of Lincoln." The list begins in
1298 and continues to the time of the
publication of the book in 1808.

Of the great number of the members
of Parliament who represented the
city of Lincoln during these five cen-
turies, only one man used the affix
"de Lincoln." He was Henry Scoyle
de Lincoln who was in Parliament in
1314 during the reign of Edward II.
It is admitted generally, however,
that it is to the town of Lincoln that
the nativity of the Lincoln family
must be traced.

The Lincoln Kinsman

One of the very first records of the
Lincolns in England is found as early
as 1290, when Adam, son of William
de Lincoln of Great Yarmouth, and
his wife received at London a grant of
land in County Essex. It is very likely
he was the progenitor of the Lincolns
of Norfolk.

Hingbam

The first biographical attempt to
associate the Lincolns of Hingham,
Massachusetts, with the Lincolns
of Hingham, England, was made by
Solomon Lincoln, Jr. In his History
of Hingham published in 1827, he
used in the appendix to his book
a "sketch of the Lincoln families."
He observed that in Daniel Cushing's
manuscripts there is a memorandum
as follows: "1633 Nicholas Jacob
with his wife and two children and
their cousin Thomas Lincoln Weaver
came from Old Hingham and settled
in this Hingham."

Four years later Cushing made this
note found in his manuscripts: "1637
John Tower and Samuel Lincoln came
from old Hingham, and both settled
at new Hingham."

By the will of Thomas Lincoln, it
is evident that he was a brother of
Samuel and that one other brother
named Daniel also settled in Hing-
ham, Massachusetts.

The Cushing manuscripts reveal
that a Stephen Lincoln and his wife
and son Stephen came from Wind-
ham, England, and the same year an-
other Thomas Lincoln came across the
water.

With these American records avail-
able, it was then left for later his-
torians to confirm them with English
documents. The first one of impor-
tance was found in Chancery Lane in

London, where this notation referring
to two ships about to start for Am-
erica was found:

"These persons went to New Eng-
land with William Andrewes of
Ipswich Mr of the John and Dorothy
of Ipswich and with William An-
drewes his son Mr of the Rose of Yar-
mouth.

"April the 8th 1637. Francis Lawes
borne in Norwich in No'ff and there
living Weauear aged . . . and Liddea
his wife aged 49 yeares with one child
Marey and 2 saruants. Samuell Lin-
corne aged 18 yeares and Anne Smith
aged 19 yeares and are desirous to
passe for New England to inhabit."

This entry confirms that Samuel
Lincoln started out from England
with a man from his home county to
whom he had apparently been bound
out to learn the weaver's trade. That
this was the same Samuel Lincoln who
arrived in Hingham the same year
cannot be doubted.

Hingham, England, was one of the
centers of religious controversy in the
seventeenth century, and from Nor-
folk county in which it was located
came one-third of the hundred passen-
gers who arrived in America on the
Mayflower. It was from Hingham and
its neighboring towns that the Puritan
element migrated to New England and
largely made up the early population
of the colonies of Pilgrims.

In 1634 there arose a controversy
about the place which the Eucharist
should occupy in the church service
and concerning those eligible to par-
take of the emblems. Reverend Robert
Peck, the obscure rector of the Hing-
ham church, rebelled against the edict
from the church authorities and, with
the support of his parishioners includ-

The Lincoln Kinsman

The Lincoln Kinsman

Published Monthly by

LlNCOLNIANA PUBLISHERS

Box 1110 — Fort Wayne, Ind.

EDITOR

Dr. Louis A. Warren,

Director, Lincoln National Life Foundation

BUSINESS MANAGER
Maurice A. Cook

$2.00

.25

SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN FORMER ISSUES
OF THE LINCOLN KINSMAN

1. The Colonial Lincolns, 2. The Unknown
Hanks Ancestry, 3. The Herrings of Virginia,
4. Five Shipley Sisters, 5. The Todd Family,
6. Bush Family Documents, 7. Early 19th Cen-
tury Lincolns, 8. Kentucky Archives, 9. Abra-
ham Lincoln's Father, 10. Hon. Robert Todd
Lincoln, 11. James Wright Sparrow, 12. Uncle
Mordecai Lincoln, 13. Thomas (Tad) Lincoln,
14. The Tennessee Lincolns, 15. The Lincolns
of Hingham, 16. The Richard Berry Family, 17.
Southern Branch of Hankses.

ing members of the Lincoln family,
took the sacred table from its recently
acquired lofty position and brought
it down again where it would be acces-
sible to the people. For this he was
excommunicated.

Peck called his people together and
said, "There is no longer tarrying
here. Let's swear fidelity to one an-
other, and so resolve for New Eng-
land." A majority of the people in the
Hingham church agreed to this com-
pact, so one of the most thriving New
England colonies was established at
Hingham in Massachusetts. Those
who remained, a small minority,
complained in a petition about the ca-
lamity which had befallen the English
community of Hingham.

The Reverend Robert Peck mi-
grated to Hingham, Massachusetts, in

1638 and became a minister in the
church at that place. He arrived on the
ship "Diligent" of which John Martin
was master. These are the names of
those taking passage on the same
ship: Robert Peck, Joseph Peck, Ed-
ward Gilman, John Foulsham, Henry
Chamberlin, Stephen Gates, George
Knights, Thomas Cooper, Matthew
Cushing, John Beal, Jr., Francis
James, Philip James, James Buck,
Stephen Payne, William Pitts, Edward
Michell, John Sutton, Stephen Lin-
coln, Samuel Parker, Thomas Lincoln,
Jeremiah Moore, Henry Smith, Bo-
zoan Allen, Matthew Hawke, William
Ripley.

To return to the confirmation of the
Cushing manuscripts, we find here in
England that the same Thomas and
Stephen Lincoln started out for New
England in 1638, the year Cushing
claims they arrived.

The major task which confronted
historians after they learned that the
Samuel Lincoln of new Hingham had
come from old Hingham, was to dis-
cover some specific record which
would connect the English and Am-
erican generations. Naturally the
Hingham, England, records were
searched, and here an entry was dis-
covered that gave the date of the bap-
tism of a child Samuel on August 24,
1622.

When Samuel Lincoln left England
in 1637 he was obliged to give his age
which he listed as eighteen. At the
time of his death on May 26, 1690, his
age was given as seventy-one. These
two dates are in agreement and would
accordingly make his birth date in
1619, three years earlier than the
church record indicates.

The discrepancy in the date of Sam-

The Lincoln Kinsman

uel's birth has become still more dif-
ficult to explain because there was a
Daniel Lincoln, supposedly a brother,
born on March 28, 1619, the same
year Samuel was born if his reported
age at embarking for America and at
the time of his death were given cor-
rectly.

Five Generations

Most Lincoln students have never-
theless come to the conclusion that
the Samuel Lincoln on the Hingham,
England, register and the Samuel
Lincoln noted by Gushing in his Hing-
ham, Massachusetts, register are one
and the same person. Working on this
basis the English ancestry of Presi-
dent Lincoln can be run back five
generations. This is the way the an-
cestral line would appear:

I Robert Lincoln — d. 1543

II Robert Lincoln — d. 1556

III Richard Lincoln— d. 1620

IV Edward Lincoln— d. 1640
V Samuel Lincoln — d. 1690

The same entry that records the
birth of Samuel names his father as
Edward Lincoln.

Edward was the oldest son of Rich-
ard Lincoln. Edward, under the old
English law of primogeniture, became
the heir to his father's estate. His
mother was Elizabeth Remching, old-
est daughter of Richard Remching and
Elizabeth, his wife, She died, however,
when Edward was a small child. His
father married again and a son Rich-
ard was born to this second union. The
wife soon passed away and a third
marriage contract was consummated
with a widow by the name of Mar-
gery Dunham. If there were children
by this third marriage it is not known.

After the death of his wife, Mar-
gery, still another companion was

sought and wedded. The new wife's
name was Anne Small, whose maiden
name was Bird. The first child of the
fourth marriage was a daughter, Ann,
baptised in 1599. A daughter named
Elizabeth, and a son named Henry
were also born in 1602 and 1605, re-
spectively. This last wife, who was
many years younger than her hus-
band, began to plan how she might
acquire for herself and her own chil-
dren the property which legally be-
longed to Edward, the first born son
and legal heir.

When Richard Lincoln made his
will, the oldest son, Edward, was not
mentioned and his wife Anne, with her
three children became the only bene-
ficiaries. Edward Lincoln says in the
litigation over the will, "His father
was much laboured by his latter wife
to make a will for the advancement of
her children," while he was "disin-
herited by her meaness and procure-
ment."

It is assured from the records re-
lating to the property of Samuel Lin-
coln's grandfather, Richard, that he
died possessed of a very respectable
estate. If the property had descended
to the oldest son, Edward, as was cus-
tomary, Samuel's father would have
been very well-to-do and possibly
there would not have been the incen-
tive for Samuel to seek his own for-
tunes in America.

Richard Lincoln's father, Robert,
the great grandfather of Samuel, was
also a resident of Hingham, England,
where the family apparently had
lived for several generations. He mar-
ried Margaret Alberye, but died be-
fore his oldest son Richard became of
age. His will drawn on January 14,
1556, and proven on the 29th of the
same month, gives us the names of two

The Lincoln Kinsman

sons, Richard and John, two daugh-
ters, Katherine and Agnes, and also a
posthumous child about whom no
information has been gathered.

We are able to go back one more
generation as the will of Robert's
father, for whom he was named, is
also extant. The senior Robert Lin-
coln of Hingham, made his will on
April 18, 1540, and the inheritance he
left his son Robert, Jr., is referred to
by Edward Lincoln, father of Samuel,
as "the inheritance of Robert Lin-
coln, father of the said Richard."

The church of St. Andrew at Hing-
ham, Norfolk county, England, has be-
come an European Lincoln shrine. In
a niche in the wall of the church there
was unveiled on October 15, 1919, a
bust of Abraham Lincoln by Volk.
Under the bust, engraved in stone, one
may read this inscription :

In This Parish for Many Generations

LIVED THE LINCOLNS

Ancestors of the American

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

To Whom, Greatest of that Lineage,

Many Citizens of the United States

Have Erected this Memorial
In the Hope That for All Ages Be-
tween That Land and This Land
and All Lands
There Shall Be
Malice Toward None
With Charity For All

Swanton Morley

Adjacent to Hingham is the neigh-
boring parish of Swanton Morley, and
here there is a famous old edifice
known as "The Church of All Saints."
In this church as well as in Hingham
there are the records of many Lin-
coln families. During the period from
1557 to 1675 there are recorded over
forty baptisms of children bearing the

name Lincoln. It seems that the Lin-
colns here were reasonably prosper-
ous.

Richard Lincoln, third in line of
the President's English ancestry, lived
in Swanton Morley for some years,
and here he was living at the time of
his death in 1620. In his will dated
1615 he left a bequest to the poor of
Swanton Morley. He had been mar-
ried four times and the children of
his fourth marriage inherited his
property, although his first son Ed-
ward brought a suit in chancery
against the legatees.

Nortvich

The second largest city in England
in the seventeenth century was Nor-
wich, the seat of the government of
Norfolk County. Here also there is
located an inspirational cathedral
which carries with its ancient history
a Lincoln family tradition. An old
mural tablet discovered at Norwich
indicates that as early as 1298 the
Lincolns were making gifts to the
Norwich church. This tablet states
that Thomas de Lingcole (Lincoln)
had presented to the church "a taper
of wax, a lamp, and the rent of Cole-
gate." This is said to be the oldest
tablet in the cathedral.

There were several Lincoln clergy-
men among the Norwich Lincolns,
and one Sir John Lincoln in 1387 was
left a modest legacy of one hun-
dred shillings by Sir John Howard for
religious services to be rendered.
There were two different clergymen
bearing the name Nicholas Lincoln,
one serving as early as 1507 in Ormes-
by and the other in 1537 in Caiston-
next-to-the-Sea. Three brothers at
Norwich in 1554, during the reign of
Queen Mary, were condemned to

The Lincoln Kinsman

death for ''endeavoring to stir up in-
surrection."

It is the commercial rather than the
religious interest of Norwich which
brings us into direct contact with the
English ancestry of President Lincoln.
Norwich was known for several cen-
turies as the center of the weaving in-
dustry in England. Although Lanca-
shire and Yorkshire have now become
the textile centers of the country,
Norwich still has signs of its former
prosperity.

The outstanding Norfolk antiquary,
Walter Rye, believes that Samuel Lin-
coln was born in Norwich and that
a grievous mistake has been made
about his birthplace. Mr. Rye, how-
ever, has no documentary evidence to
put forth to establish any paternity
for Samuel other than Edward Lin-
coln.

It has been noted that when Samuel
started for America, he was apparent-
ly living in Norwich with a man
named Francis Lawes, to whom he had
been bound out to learn the weaver's
trade. Samuel's older brother Thomas,
who migrated to Hingham, was also
a weaver.

On January 19, 1863, President
Lincoln wrote a letter to the "Work-
ingmen of Manchester, England" in
answer to a message which he had re-
ceived from them. The Civil War had
disrupted the exporting of cotton
which brought much hardship to the
English industrial centers. When Lin-
coln wrote, "I know and deeply de-
plore the suffering which the working-
men at Manchester and in all Europe
are called upon to endure in this
crisis," he could not have known that
his own first English progenitor, Sam-
uel Lincoln, had been engaged as a

weaver's apprentice in that section of
the country which was then its in-
dustrial center.

English Records

The lists of names which follow
from the registers at Hingham are
all persons whose surnames are Lin-
coln. There are some variations in the
spelling but it is so unimportant that
it is not noted. The name of the father
follows after that of the son or daugh-
ter.

REGISTERS OF HINGHAM, NOR-
FOLK, 1600 TO 1645
Baptismal Records

1600, Mar. 15: Annes— Hugh.
Sept. 20: Richard— Edward.

1601, Sept. 27: Robert— George.
1603, Feb. 19: Alice— Robert.

1605, Aug. 18: Judith— Hugh.

1606, Apr. 13: Sarah— Edward.
Aug. 14: Anthonie — George.
Nov. 2: William— Robert.

1607, Nov. 1: Mary— Richard.
Dec. 20: Elizabeth— Richard.

1608, Nov. 13: Richard— Richard.
Nov. 20: Abigail— Robert.

1610, Feb. 17: Elizabeth— Richard.
May 20: John— Richard.
Aug. 12: Anna — Robert.

1611, Mar. 15: John— Robert.

1612, June 14: Grace — Richard.

1613, July 31: Peter— Richard.

1614, June 12: Margaret — Robert.
Oct. 2: Robert— Richard.

1615, Mar. 3: Margaret— Robert.
Oct. 22: Ann— Richard.
Nov. 19: Robert— Edward.

1617, Feb. 1: Katherine — Robert.
July 26: Mary— Richard.

1618, May 30: Mary— Richard.

1619, Mar. 28: Daniel— Edward.
May 2: Pieke— Richard.

The Lincoln Kinsman

1620, Jan. 28: Adam— Richard.
Aug. 27: Robert — Robert.

1621, Jan. 10: William— Richard.

1622, Feb. 16: Margaret— Richard.
Aug. 24: Samuel — Edward.

1623, June 28: Robert— Robert.

1625, Dec. 11: Amye — Edward.
Feb. 19: Ann— Robert.

1626, Apr. 9: Richard— Richard.
1628, Apr. 13: Richard— Robert.

1630, Aug. 1: George — Robert.

1631, May 26: Susan— William.

1633, May 27: John— John.

1634, Sept. 7: Bridget — Robert.

1635, Oct. 26: Robert— John.

1637, Mar. 4: Richard — Richard.

1638, Nov. 23: Dorothy— John.

1639, Nov. 17: Susan— Robert.

1640, Jan. 31 : Susan — John.

1641, Sept. 5: Daniel — Robert.

1642, (Whole year missing.)

1643, May 28 : Rebecca — Edward.

1644, Jan. 5: Mary — Edward.

1 645, Mar. 9 :— Richard— Pyke.
Dec. 18: Mary — Richard.

Marriage Records

1601, Oct. 18: Robert — Anne Bore
(?)

1603, Nov. 7: Robert— Annes Har-
man.

1605, Oct. 20: Richard— Alice
Howse.

1611, Nov. 2: Ann— William God-
freye.

1618, Aug. 14: Alice— Thomas Bald-
ing.

1625, Aug. 14: Richard — Frances

Reynolds.

1626, Jan. 23: Alice— James Bald-

inge.
Sept. 14: William — Elizabeth
Wellam.

1627,
1630,
1632,

1636,
1637,

1601,
1606,
1607,
1614,

1615,
1616,
1617,
1619,
1620,

1624,

1625,

1626,
1639,

1640,
1641,
1643,

1644,
1645,

Nov. 6 : Dorothy — Arthur Cog-
man.

Jan. 30: William — Susan
Wryghte.

Oct. 11: John — Alice Stavel-
eye.

May 19: Edward — Mary Por-
ter.

Aug. 31 : Elizabeth — John
Woodcock.

October 18: Ann — Henry
Barnewell.

Burial Records

June ? : William.

Dec. 7: John — Richard.

Jan. 21 : Elizabeth — Richard.

July 19: Alice.

Oct. 5: Robert — Richard.

July 15: Margaret — Robert.

Oct. 21 : Richard.

Feb. 23: John.

June 7 : Abigail — Robert.

Nov. 25: Robert— Robert.

Dec. 23: Richard.

Apr. 2: Robert.

May 3: Elizabeth, wife of

Richard.
June 7: Margery.
July 22: Edinye.
Sept. 9: Amy, wife of Hugh.
Sept. 21 : Hugh.
June 17: Amy — Edward.
July 11: Agnes.
Feb. 11: Edward.
Oct. 15: Richard.
Oct. 28: Frances.
Aug. 15: Richard.
Apr. 15: Susan.
July 12: Mary and Rebecca —

Edward.
Dec. 28: Ann, wife of Robert.
Mar. 27: Richard— Pyke.

"7 /. 3-0n£> <?- G&tJ* & ^~-2 C H